The Kirkland Planning Commission held a study session focused on the NE 85th Street Station Area Plan (File No. CAM20-00153), receiving updates from staff and consultants on the preferred plan direction, form-based codes, and incentive zoning analysis. The commission also heard public comments, approved meeting minutes, and received administrative reports.
Try one more time. Yeah, I do not have any control over that part. Do you have the green button on the bottom that says share screen? Yeah, I'm I'm it's it was a matter of finding the window. So you see uh Northeast Station Area plan slide? Yeah. Okay, great. Uh so I'm here as part of a working group within CAM, the Kirkland Alliance of Neighborhoods. And I'm not nice there, we are. Um we've this working group has been looking at the plan for quite a while and providing a conduit of information back and forth between the city and the community, and there's a lot of assumptions in the community about uh the plan and in particular transportation, and I saw a lot of mention of that in tonight's packet. Uh they're also concerned about the physical impact and schools and parks and the idea of using tax increment financing. If you just kind of zoom in on one issue just as an example, uh today's Lake Wishing Washington High School has no school bus service. And so there's a lot of traffic at the beginning and the end of the day, and 120th is a is a major corridor along with 80th. Um also the high school has no unused campus space. It's really pretty packed. And the station area plan proposes a civic mixed use area right where there's a stadium and a parking lot. So the Google campus project is nearby and it's on a fast track with apparently a June approval deadline. Google and Lee Johnson owners presented the the project to Cannes, and we learned that there were two phases, two 250-foot towers in each phase, a lot of underground parking in the first phase, and maybe more in the second, and a total of 9,000 new employees offices on the on the property. And we looked at that and and the community looked at it and thought about it with respect to the high school and came up with all these problem areas um that need to be dug into to figure out how we're going to uh run a high school with this sort of office development and commuter traffic, uh whether it's bus or individual cars, a mix clearly. Um, and came up with the answer that the current traffic analysis is just not digging in at the level that needs to be investigated. And at the same time, the project has been paced in such a way that well, the city council members have told the public that the preferred option resolution approved in December is not the final plan, and that there would be in-progress studies and data gathering that would then feed back into the plan. And the community is becoming increasingly concerned that that's actually maybe the final plan, and it's just a matter of going forward. So the working group is proposing that first off we delay any ordinances until after there's a convincing mobility plan for the case. Hi, Ken. Ken, you're out of time with your three minutes. But I do want to ask, yeah. I want to give them a few more minutes to that's from Cam. Okay. I would have a motion that can be placed on the agenda and off the three-minute public comment mark. This is if he's if he's relaying information from their working group. We yeah, and we actually we actually had a meeting with the mayor and the city manager last week and went through a longer version of these slides, and it would be great to share them with you guys. But to wrap this up, so we need a we need a really workable thorough plan that addresses all the aspects of uh transportation, and we really need the school district to buy into this and and answer the question of where the extra elementary school is going to go. Um, and we know that there's meetings and things like that that are happening, but there hasn't been a plan. And we need a community park somewhere in the park, we don't need to build it, but we need to identify the space, we believe. And we want all plan studies to be complete and accepted by the community before there's a bunch of ordinances that actually implement the plan. And in particular, there's increasing concern lately that Sound Transit may continue to slip the BRT station. And if they do, and Kirkland has developed this area, assuming the BRT is there, but there is no BRT, we're going to have a real mess. So there's a proposal that maybe we just have to hold off at least until construction contracts have been signed. And that's pretty radical. But the idea is what are we going to do if there's no BRT station and there's 9,000 new Google employees at the corner of 120th and 85th? So that's it. Thanks, Ken. And you'll be around to answer any questions. Yeah, I can. For a little bit. I want to let anyone else who's here for public comment, but um I think Katya, I'm gonna see if there's anyone else for public comment, and then we can continue. Ken, if you want to hang on, I don't see anyone else's hands raised. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak in the audience? It looks like no at this time. So okay.